President Biden will head to East Palestine, Ohio in February, a year after a Northern Suffolk train derailment that unleashed hazardous chemicals into the small town and surrounding areas. 

The White House announcement comes days after the Sun made a trip to East Palestine, where residents expressed mixed feelings about the upcoming anniversary on February 3. While some want to use the incident as a “catalyst for change” when it comes to railroad and environmental safety, others are ready to move on from being constantly reminded of the disaster, which devastated local wildlife, polluted the air and water supply, and left residents with concerns that they may develop cancer and other long-term health problems. 

Mr. Biden’s visit will be fulfilling a promise he made nearly a year ago to visit the Ohio town “at some point.” The president has drawn criticism from residents for his absence from the site so far, as locals said they felt overlooked and forgotten by a man who campaigned on a blue collar image. 

Ahead of Mr. Biden’s announcement, one East Palestine resident told the Sun that if he comes, “he cannot come empty-handed.”

“You don’t show up at somebody’s house late without a bottle of wine,” Jess Conard, who was thrust into an environmental advocacy role after developing health problems from the toxic chemicals, said. “We need him to provide us with the reassurance that the federal government has our back.” 

People in the area “feel forgotten” and that “they don’t matter,” to the president and the federal government more generally, she said. Other nearby residents said it was essential that Mr. Biden come “put his eyes” on the town so he could see it “in a clearer way.” 

When asked if people want attention on East Palestine or to distance themselves from the derailment, one native of the area, Seth Walker, told the Sun there are “both of those camps” among the community, and said “there’s a little less middle ground than there was.” 

“For the first two, three months, I mean, even dragging into last summer, it was constant,” he said. “I mean, we didn’t go a day without having the media here, we had several politicians come and visit. It was a lot. I think it was overwhelming to some folks.”

Mr. Walker serves as program director for Threshold Residential Services, a nonprofit in town that provides services for people with developmental disabilities. 

“Our entire thing from the get-go was, hey, we’re not here to politicize this. We’re not here to cast blame,” Mr. Walker said. “We’re here to rally around each other and help support our community, help support our residents, and really just spread some positivity.”

Things have mostly been “back to normal,” he said. Yet one problem is the unknown effects of the derailment to business and other aspects of daily life in East Palestine.  

“We don’t know how much potential new business would have come in. We don’t know how many people that might have been thinking about a move into town here, thinking about opening a business here, and decided that ‘hey, no, I’m not doing that,’” he said. 

“I run three day programs for adults with disabilities. I don’t know how many people would have been considering us and said, ‘yeah, that’s, that’s not for me,’” he said, adding that there is an element of the “unknown.” “Now we have a little bit of a stigma, perhaps.” 

Yet the “biggest takeaway” from the incident was to see the community come together as well as the overwhelming support from other towns and states. 

“It’s a small, idyllic little Mayberry-esque town. So everyone really did rally together,” he said. “We had tons of support coming from all different areas.” 

Mr. Biden’s visit will likely draw questions from residents and environmental groups about what actions the federal government is taking on railroad safety and hazardous chemical issues. When the train derailed last February, it was carrying a toxic gas called vinyl chloride, which is used to make plastics used in packaging, pipes, and other products. 

Following the derailment, citing fears of an explosion, the railroad company conducted a “controlled release” of the vinyl chloride through burning, as residents were to evacuate the area and the deadly fumes. Some experts have since said the burn was not necessary, as the Sun reported.

The issue extends beyond East Palestine. A recent report by Toxic-Free Future found that an estimated three million people live within one mile of rail tracks that are used to transport vinyl chloride.

“The people of East Palestine were forced to learn the hard way that tank cars of vinyl chloride rumbling through your town can mean disaster for your health and your community,” a program director for Toxic-Free Future, Mike Schade, said in a statement.  “It is outrageous that the amount of vinyl chloride involved in that tragedy reflects only a small percentage of the millions of pounds that is transported at any given moment.”